This 2004 file photo shows US Marines on a mission in Ramadi, Iraq. The Marines will hand over control of Iraq's western desert to the Army during a ceremony at Camp Ramadi, Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010. (AP Photo/Jim MacMillan, File)

(Newser)
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The US Marine Corps wrapped nearly 7 years in Iraq today, handing over duties to the Army in a ceremony in Ramadi, and signaling the beginning of an accelerated withdrawal of American troops. The last remaining Marines are expected to be followed out by tens of thousands of soldiers in the coming months, leaving just 50,000 troops in the country by Aug. 31. Most are scheduled to depart after the March 7 parliamentary election.

In Baghdad, Vice President Joe Biden held talks with Iraqi leaders amid growing tensions over plans to blacklist as many as 500 election candidates with suspected links to Saddam Hussein's regime.The White House worries the bans could raise questions over the fairness of the elections, which are seen as an important step in the American pullout timetable. As many as 25,000 Marines were in Iraq at the peak of fighting, mostly in Anbar province, where the hand-off today occurred.

Vietnam worked out well in the long run, unless it was your job being shipped over there. But the Vietnamese were reasonable people rebelling against a corrupt government we foolishly defended. The problem in the middle east is that a large number of them are religious people. And reason doesn't go to far when dealing with people whose lives revolve around a magic man in the sky. As long as we maintain bases in Iraq it will have a nice corrupt government like it and Afghanistan currently have. If we completely leave, they will get a government of unstable religious nutburgers, like in Iran.

Spudsy

Jan 24, 2010 12:15 PM CST

Iran will start trouble with Iraq. Because Saddam Hussein's bluff on having WMDs was the only thing that kept them from doing it for the last twenty years. But the Wolfowitz neo-cons were too stupid to see that and your fellow right voters are too dim to see anything that Rush doesn't tell you to see. I'm going to go eat some government cheese now. Get back in your General Lee replica and move to this democracy you dream about in the middle east. You wasted 4000 soldiers lives to create it, you might as well put it to use.